Townhouses on the rise Buyers are leaving apartments and single-family homes
For 19 years, Susie Gugliotta lived in a five-bedroom home in Weston.
But she no longer needed anything that large and was ready for a change.
Instead of a smaller house, last June she plunked down $481,000 for a waterfront townhouse in Artesia, a development still under construction in Sunrise. Gugliotta isn’t alone. New townhome construction is the rage, according to the National Association of Home Builders, a Washington, D.C.-based trade organization that predicts “future gains” for townhomes. Many townhouse buyers are going from being a renter to an owner, downsizing, or seeking to live in urban sprawl.
The peak of two decades of townhouse construction was in early 2008, when townhouses accounted for more than 14 percent of all single-family construction, according to the organization. The numbers dipped, and now they’re rising again to 12 percent as of March, said Robert Dietz, the group’s chief economist.
Dietz said the numbers “are going to grow as those millennials grow into their early 30s — the typical age of a first-time homebuyer in the United States.”
Townhomes “offer the nice mix of what newer homebuyers and newly formed households are looking for: a single-family unit — something with a front door — and they can purchase, establish roots,” Dietz said.
It’s also popular in markets where there are lot shortages.
“Most millennials want to own